Yes, London is a great city in many aspects. Like Johnny Rotten, I can't really relate to the glass buildings stuff they overdid. I like Foster, I lived years ago in a building designed by him, but too much bad Fosterism in the new arquitecture. The tower really looks like a dildo and Johnny's scooter helmet is spot-on. I particularly hate the hugly "Brighton's" Wheel. But it's a vibrant place.

The expensiveness was always there, but they went crazy in the late 80's. A friend of mine who passed away, suddenly went rich after he sold his appartment in London because the district he was living turned fashionable. He stopped to work with all the money and left London to live in a indian ocean island near the sea the rest of his life.

Yes, London is a great city in many aspects. Like Johnny Rotten, I can't really relate to the glass buildings stuff they overdid. I like Foster, I lived years ago in a building designed by him, but too much bad Fosterism in the new arquitecture. The tower really looks like a dildo and Johnny's scooter helmet is spot-on. I particularly hate the hugly "Brighton's" Wheel. But it's a vibrant place.

The expensiveness was always there, but they went crazy in the late 80's. A friend of mine who passed away, suddenly went rich after he sold his appartment in London because the district he was living turned fashionable. He stopped to work with all the money and left London to live in a indian ocean island near the sea the rest of his life.

Well that was considerate; usually, they move up to the nicer parts of Scotland or out to Cornwall and Wales and the locals there have to live with their parents for the rest of their lives because they themselves can't afford to buy locally anymore.

In many ways, it's the same in Mallorca: many farms were sold off and became big gardens for foreign industrialists or estate agents... and who made the money? It isn't that easy to tell: the ex-farmers who sold were long ago outwitted by inflation and can no lpnger buy back what they thought they'd sold at a huge profit, and those of us who bought at those prices now can't sell without going broke because just like the washing machine when you are in a hurry and need to go out, the systemís ever at the wrong place on the programme. I know for a fact that all of my life I have been too late for the best deals by a regular gap of ten years. Would I have traded being ten years older in order to have been able to take advantage of the correct space/time frame that I should have occupied? Probably, yes. Better older than feeling a fish out of water most of the time, and one canít escape the fact that if you are going to get, say, eighty years in total, then what difference does it make when you spend it? You probably get the same balance of good and bad regardless; but maybe, if you have choice, youíd get to be in synch!

I enjoyed the Johnny Rotten video, for which, thanks.

Though a far smaller place, Glasgow is just the same as London appears to be. I was last back there eight-and-a-half years ago for a funeral. I hardly knew how to drive around the city anymore: the streets have disappeared or been changed to one-ways; the compass of landmarks has vanished behind new structures or been totally turned into history. Even the local park where I used to walk the pooch for an hour twice a day, rain, sun, freezing fog or snow has altered beyond spiritual recognition. The pond where I shot pix of models in rowing boats has lost its charm and sense of calm, and last time I was there it offered all the glory and solitude of walking around a huge puddle in a city. Perhaps thatís what opening up the world to everyone does: ruins those moments of reflection, floating swans (some have been beaten to death there in recent years) and proud mums pushing high prams around the waterís edge as they point out nature to the sleeping babes. (I can vouch for the latter from memory and snapshot.) Itís all fucking gone, along with the immediate post-war boom that created so much of that one-time prosperity. Maybe thatís why wars exist: to reboot economies. The generally unrealised natural way to prolong life on Earth could well exist in just this type of human pruning: perhaps itís why we have not quite outgrown the worldís resources Ė yet; perhaps thatís why, as a species, we have this built-in structure of gratuitous violence: it keeps us culled to sustainable levels.

I see reality where once I didn't is all. Or, as likely, the reality that I see today as a negative turn in the world state is the only reality our younger members know, and so natural youth prevents the comparisons with earlier realities from being made which is only normal, but if memory is long, then there's no hiding place from the knowledge of how it was.

One only has to consider how fast food has become the norm of many... I remember vividly coming home after midnight from a long stint in the darkroom and my wife having a gorgeous fillet steak, chips and beautiful fresh vegetables ready for me to enjoy! Today, that would either return to choke me to death in my sleep or give me another heart attack.

Frankly, there's little that a generous lottery win wouldn't help relieve: time spent drifting through a list of the Relais & Ch‚teaux establishments would certainly contribute to the adoption of a new set of shades... dammit, might even go turncoat and buy Canon and a 17mm Tilter/Shifter!

This, for example, is just one part of a reality in wich we can decide to focus-on, or not. It's not a universal truth.US has a HUGE problem with obesity. I've never seen so many obese people per meter-square anywhere else and the last time i was it litterally shocked me how bad it incresed to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes soon a US governement strategical concern. It of course has to do with garbage food habits, not to do with richness, with some first world obliged decadence. Simply look at the japanese. Top developped country, you'd have hard time to find some obese people in the streets.Genes? No, simply look at what they eat. They don't eat bloody burgers, Coca Cola and donuts, no.Even the UK fish and ships with vinager is a sweet joke compared to the US industrial food habits.

This, for example, is just one part of a reality in wich we can decide to focus-on, or not. It's not a universal truth.US has a HUGE problem with obesity. I've never seen so many obese people per meter-square anywhere else and the last time i was it litterally shocked me how bad it incresed to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes soon a US governement strategical concern. It of course has to do with garbage food habits, not to do with richness, with some first world obliged decadence. Simply look at the japanese. Top developped country, you'd have hard time to find some obese people in the streets.Genes? No, simply look at what they eat. They don't eat bloody burgers, Coca Cola and donuts, no.Even the UK fish and ships with vinager is a sweet joke compared to the US industrial food habits.

Sorry, didn't mean fish&ships but fish&chips

Well, I can tell you the Britain is now offically the worst country in Europe for the weight problem, and problem it is, because as they tell us, the Health Service won't be able to cope with the results. And that will affect everybody, regardless of how diet-conscious they may be.

I hate to say it, but Mac and the rest do good business in Spain... the Mac carparks we passed in France always looked pretty busy, but that might be because of the early lunch hours there...

What has that to do with your post? I don't know. It just came to my mind, when I read your post.

AND. Man Ė am I jealous about the images you took in your past. All these beautiful girls on the beach. Which brings me back to the image of the espresso machine. I originally wanted to post: "This is what I see, when I wake up in the morning." (I hope I'm not banned from the forum now.) I think the french would say: "Je me suis rťveillť sous un arbre". Is that right fredjeang2?

Best,Johannes

Hi,

Well, Iím perfectly happy that your reply wasnít strictly on topic; most interesting posts I read are not: itís the development of the idea and where it takes one that interests me in this posting business. Itís exactly how it often works for me: someone writes something and that sparks a memory or an attitude, and away I go.

My old images? Make you a bit envious? Shit, I envy myself these days. Where the hell did it all go? I know where it went: political correctness killed it all, the bespoke calendars and the stock side of it too. Itís the universal problem of too many eggs in one basket, to which there is but a single valid solution: find that one, enormous egg and hope for the best! Guess I didnít quite realise the writing on the wall at the time.

MrSmith

England is full of obese people, you really notice it when you leave London for the provinces, I'm a 'middle aged' 29in waist 6footer who years ago would be considered 'normal' but now I'm looked at as undernourished (I have a healthy appetite) when I was at school there was 1 'fat kid' now 30% are obese.

Don't you think with all this over positive, joy and sunshine outlook you might be sidestepping reality just a bit?

Ground yourself man.

BC

Hate to tell you: I was not exaggerating at all. My old city has vanished. Perhaps it was just small enough still to be personal; it was certainly very ugly in parts, but there was also a charm, even in the bad weather and smog. There was charm in looking out of the window at the silent snow falling in the glow of the lights across our road; I can remember driving back home in the yellow fog a few times, unable to see anything much at all, but happy to follow the tramlines that took me exactly where I had to go; was a time I could park in Buchanan Street, right in front of my client's House of Fraser flagship store. Then they introduced 'pedestrianisation' and blew the whole city centre away.

There are a lot of empty shops along Sauchiehall Street.

You live in a new country; perhaps there hasn't been time for a sense of decay, of the best being behind it, to accrue. But, I suspect that the 50s were, overall, probably the best the US will see. I hope I'm mistaken.

England is full of obese people, you really notice it when you leave London for the provinces, I'm a 'middle aged' 29in waist 6footer who years ago would be considered 'normal' but now I'm looked at as undernourished (I have a healthy appetite) when I was at school there was 1 'fat kid' now 30% are obese.

Well, I can tell you the Britain is now offically the worst country in Europe for the weight problem, and problem it is, because as they tell us, the Health Service won't be able to cope with the results. And that will affect everybody, regardless of how diet-conscious they may be.

I hate to say it, but Mac and the rest do good business in Spain... the Mac carparks we passed in France always looked pretty busy, but that might be because of the early lunch hours there...

Rob C

THIS is the cure, beleive me.

and for the ones who really can't deal with japanese food, may this will convince you?

Come-on! eating raw is healphy. Another one for the most recalcitrants.

And I've been thinking of writing a new best-selling weight-loss book based on my own experiences: It will be called the Kidney Stone Weight-Loss Program. I have succeeded in losing ten pounds during the last two weeks since the Kidney Stone hit. Maybe I'm ready to try the Japanese diet now...

While the prospect of eating sushi as served in the attached photographs is surely tempting (for a different reason though ), it shall be noted that:

Quote

Supermarket sushi is much more like typical fast food than you'd think, with a couple of California rolls packing as many calories and twice as much sugar as a Big Mac and French fries from McDonald's.